


Because Sooner Or Later

by Leyenn



Category: Babylon 5, Doctor Who
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Jane is looking for a story. She's going to get more than she was looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because Sooner Or Later

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyvivien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyvivien/gifts).



> Written for Ladyvivien on the occasion of her birthday.

"I have not had the best experiences with 'the press'," the woman in front of her says. All halting formality; guarded in a way that looks like innocence, Sarah thinks, and is damned impressed. If she weren't so used to seeing what's _really_ there, she'd miss it too, just like the last guy who pulled this assignment and got his story - dull as dishwater but not quite as buoyant, especially in this era of distilled news. No one wants to hear the minutes of the President's latest meeting when they can choose the World Series results instead.

She's looked forward to this assignment and worked herself hard to get it. This world is different but enough the same for the opportunity to fall within her reach, with her skills. More than that, she's interested. The things she's heard...

"Don't worry," she says, smiling _the smile_ \- the one she learnt from _him_, the one that opens all sorts of doors. "I'll be gentle."

Dark eyes meet her gaze squarely and without pretence, but with something approaching amusement. "Somehow I find that almost disappointing."

Okay, so the woman in front of her now isn't quite the one she's been expecting, either. There's a subtle sense of humour under the calm steel as she cocks her head and adds; "And almost certainly a lie. A gloved claw is still a claw, as you would be wise to remember." And somehow that's the conversation turned on its head, onto _her_ head, just like that, with just a few words and a smile.

She's never met anyone who could match the smile, but it seems the universe does have a few surprises in store for her yet. It's an oddly exciting prospect.

"Forgive me, Madam President," she says, floundering a little and even actually meaning it (a little). She's sure her aunt would be disgusted, but then her aunt never interviewed the President of half the galaxy. "I'm not sure if we've got off on the wrong foot here."

"We're sitting down, Miss Smith." The President smiles again and with both hands, offers the delicate china teapot between them. "Some tea?"

A suspicion strikes her and she has to smile - a real smile, her own smile. "You wouldn't have a stash of jelly babies hidden around here, would you?"

"Jelly... babies?" A turn up for her - the President looks bewildered and just a little concerned by the idea. It's actually more than a little endearing. Sarah laughs.

"Never mind. Just something... An old friend. You reminded me for a minute. Of him. He used to like..." Part of her wonders why she's saying this, telling the most powerful woman in the known galaxy about little sugar sweets made in the shape of babies. It's sick, really, now that she thinks about it that way. Eating sweets shaped like your own young. That's probably what the President's thinking now.

A warm hand, warmed again from the tea, covers her own. "I am sorry for your loss," this strange, steely and gentle woman says, oh so very quiet and completely sincere.

She's so surprised, she doesn't even notice the mug pressed into her other hand until warm fingers wrap her own around it.

  


*

  


"You want a story about me?" The President smiles, and it's not the smile of a press victim. "All right. I have a story I will tell you."

Not 'can' but 'will', an allowance made for some unfathomable reason, and Sarah knows it's precious. Knows also that it's going to be a good one.

  


*

  


"It was many years ago, of course. Before I came here. I was... I found myself in a position of authority among my people."

The President's voice, removed of the official fripperies of her position, is smoother than Sarah expects. She speaks English with the ease of someone comfortable in another person's world, and with the occasional trip into the mixed idioms of her teachers, most of whom Sarah thinks have been Earth military from what she knows and what else she's started to notice. A few centuries isn't enough to stop Sarah-Jane Smith recognising military speak when she hears it.

"A position of authority?" She takes a sip of her tea. "I don't suppose you're likely to tell me what that was if I ask."

The President smiles. "You're a very perceptive woman, Miss Smith."

"I think I'd like it if you called me Sarah Jane," she says. "Since I'm getting this exclusive story from you. If that's all right."

"Very well." Another knowing smile. "I think I'd like that. And perhaps you'd like to call me Delenn."

She smiles back. "I'd like that."

  


*

  


She's heard about the Earth-Minbari War, of course, although she arrived here long after even most of its ripples had faded into memory. But she's never heard the story told like this.

"There was blood... so much blood on my hands. I had never seen so much death, so much destruction. It sent me mad. I didn't know, for a long time, what I was doing. What I had done, in that madness." Delenn's voice is still smooth, but soft. Fragile, almost. It's slightly unnerving: Sarah looks down at her notebook and pen, on the table between her elbows, but doesn't pick them up again.

"It was only later when I realised what I had done - what I allowed to be done, in my name. In _his_ name." And suddenly Sarah knows why she's getting this story, of all things and all people.

"What was his name?" she asks softly. Delenn smiles, the smile of memory that she knows far too well.

"Dukhat. His name was Dukhat."

She's heard that name. Not often, but a time or two, hidden away in records she maybe shouldn't really have been snooping around in. But there's something in the way Delenn says it, some softness, that makes it different to anything she's been expecting. Something that makes an unknown alien name startlingly familiar.

"Ah," Delenn says, with that same softness in her eyes. "I thought so. If I may ask...?"

She shakes her head. Delenn puts a hand over hers. She swallows.

"He went by many names. Mostly everyone called him the Doctor."

She hasn't spoken his name for months - well, since he left her here. In Croydon; and it was Croydon, just... not quite _her_ Croydon. But close enough, with her unique way of looking at things and her lack of surprise in anything alien. Twenty-two sixty-one is only a few hundred years out of time, which for Sarah-Jane Smith is barely even tomorrow.

Delenn meets her gaze with an inquisitive look in her eyes. "The Doctor. That's an interesting name."

She shakes her head, smiles. "He - was an interesting person."

"Loss is a terrible thing," Delenn says gently, and holds her hand still, until she feels tears spike her eyes and has to turn away. "It is always painful when someone leaves us, but you must have faith. All life has meaning. Be glad for the time you had together, and the pain will fade in time... at least a little." Her eyes are dark. "I promise you that."

She can't find words, because she's afraid that they'll bring the tears with them, and crying in an interview is just something that Isn't Done which goes double if you're the journalist in the scene. She nods, though, because in this moment, here, the woman Delenn is seems incapable of lies.

Delenn squeezes her hand tightly for a moment, warm and understanding, as if she knows. "Would you like some more tea, Sarah?"

She nods again, still wordlessly. When Delenn is in the kitchen, she finds herself rubbing her fingers together to get rid of the chill.

  


*

  


"I can't imagine ever being married," she says thoughtfully. The mug is warm between her palms and Delenn's couch is infinitely more comfortable than the chair she's been using until now. She wonders, not out of any need but just as one of those idle thoughts of the moment, where she's left her notebook.

"I had never given it thought myself," Delenn admits. "But with John... it simply seemed to happen. I believe we are as much a part of each other's destiny as everything else that's happened these past few years."

"It must be nice to feel like that," she says.

"I think you have felt like that, once."

She draws the mug of tea to her chest, like a protection from the truth. The tears are still there, just waiting for their chance, she can feel them - and there's no point to them now, they won't bring him back. He's left her here. She's made a life, as best she can.

"I'm sorry," Delenn says. She sounds sincere. "Perhaps I'm wrong?"

"No, you're right." She almost laughs. "Is it so obvious that I felt that way with him?"

Delenn's smile is amused. "I meant perhaps you would prefer not to talk about it."

"Oh. Damn." She does laugh this time. "Well, I'll admit, you're good."

"I have seen a lot of pain," Delenn admits. "But I have usually found that life itself is wondrous enough to be worth the trials."

She tries to think about that, but it's clouded with the image of his face and the sound that makes her gut ache like there's a black hole inside. "I wish I believed that."

She doesn't notice Delenn standing or the slight click of a mug against the coffee table, but she does feel the warmth again when Delenn takes her hand.

"Allow me to show you," Delenn says softly, with eyes that are very dark. So dark, and Sarah thinks she can see the universe in them. She stands up, very close, and Delenn is still holding her by both hands, and she isn't sure until it comes that the kiss is really going to happen.

It's gentle, like the tenderness in that soft voice, and hard like the steel in that warm touch. She can't stop it, just like she can't stop the tears that escape down her face and then are gone, leaving her free and damn it, enjoying it, the warmth of a body moving close to hers and the wet heat of a mouth and tongue, and she can only think _holy shit, Harry, I think I'm going to bed with the President of the galaxy._

A long time later, when her subconscious proves true, she can't not laugh. "Are you serious?"

Delenn looks as if she's forgotten the bed was even there. "Don't worry, John always has trouble as well. I'll change it for you."

"Oh, I've seen stranger than this," she says. It's probably workable, with a bit of imagination, and she thinks... yes, she'd like to try that kind of life again. "I used to live in a blue box from the nineteen-fifties that was bigger on the inside than the outside. Come on, I'm game if you are."

Delenn looks perplexed at the turn of phrase; Sarah smiles, glad to still have some means of levelling the field she's found herself on, and shakes her head as she leans in. "Never mind."

  


*

  


She knew it would be a good one. She also knew she wouldn't write it. And she knows, remembering looking into those eyes, that Delenn knew it too.

She's not going to be the one to write this woman into the history books - Delenn of Mir, President of the Interstellar Alliance, victor of the Shadow war, has more than done that herself. But she won't be the one who scoops the dirt, uncovers the secrets or voices the suspicions, either, no matter how much she knows people back home want to hear it. No.

She'll go home and write her dull story that will sink like so much rubble of a career, and then she'll come back out here, explore a galaxy where there are still people willing and able to surprise even Sarah Jane Smith.

And if she passes through this station again on her way, well. There's always that dinner invitation, or the private comm channel hurriedly scrawled on the inside of her wrist - if she's feeling especially adventurous.

  


*

  


_'Because sooner or later, everyone comes to Babylon 5.' - Jeffrey Sinclair_


End file.
